The Full Moon Coffee Shop: A Novel (Mochizuki)

The Full Moon Coffee Shop: A Novel
Mai Mochizuki
Translated by Jesse Kirkwood (2014)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a Pandemic Book Club book. Both the ebook nore the audiobook had months-long waits at all three libraries, so I finally requested the hardcover. I had that in two days. It's a quick read. It's not a novella -- it was over 200 pages. The book was published in Japan, where it is set, and was translated into English by Jesse Kirkwood.

The story is broken up into three parts with an epilogue that ties it all together.

There's a coffee shop that only appears when the moon is full, and it doesn't have a fixed location. It appears to people who may be lost and need some directions. And it's run by cats with names like Mercury, Mars, and Uranus (who can appear human). It's not an actual shop, but a cart that has tables and chairs set up in front of it. If you sit at one of their tables, you can't order anything. They will bring you what you need. And they will read your star chart stating which planets are in whatever house, and what that might mean when applied to your life.

In the first part of the book, a romance screenwriter is now writing story lines for side characters in romance videogames, the kind that can conclude happily but leave the player wishing for the better character, so they keep playing. She gets a call from a producer about a script she sent. The other woman wants to meet her in person. The producer doesn't realize that the writer doesn't live in that neighborhood any more because she's downsized a bit.

The lunch meeting doesn't go well. The producer tells the writer that the network wouldn't go for it. It seems like the stuff that used to be done and doesn't reflect today's trends. The writer is shocked that the producer came all that way to deliver bad news, so she doesn't advocate for herself. The producer notices this.

The writer then finds herself in the company of the cats and learns more about herself. She makes a decision and decides to focus on making the best script for the videogame she possibly can.

In the second chapter, the producer is having a crisis. She wanted to see the writer because she remembers her as a substitute teacher from when she was a child. But the meeting went so poorly that she never had a chance to tell her. The producer has a couple of problems. One is love-related, and the other is affair-related. She has to fire an actress who had an affair with a married man because the public would be outraged and wouldn't accept her in the kind of roles that she plays.

By the time the day is over, the producer is drinking with the cats and set her straight on a thing or two.

In the third part, the fired actress gets her stars read and we find that everyone seems to be connected, going back to the same school. The substitute used to walk a group of kids to school, and all of them are important to the story and the cats. They remember every day passing the house of an old man who used to have his window open and would play piano. One day, he wasn't playing. The substitute teacher was worried and checked on him. He'd collapsed in his home. The kids got help for him.

As one might guess, things start to work out for all the people to whom the Coffee Shop appeared to. And in the epilogue -- IF YOU FOUND MY PAGE BY RANDOM CHANCE AND HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK, THERE IS A SPOILER COMING AFTER THE DASHES ---

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And in the epilogue, we find out that the old man was a symphony conductor who wasn't satisfied with his life. One night, he met the cats at the Full Moon Coffee Shop. After that, he quit conducting to focus on being the best piano player that he could be. He loved playing music for the children who walked past his house every day. And he remembered the kindness that they gave him. And as a reward, he asked the cats to look after the children and the teacher who helped him.

A touching ending that tied the book together more than I thought it would be.

I enjoyed this. This was the third hardcover book of the year, and it was only the middle of January! (Yes, I'm behind with my reviews!)

Next up, a YA book that I found a bunch of books in the series before misplacing all but the first somewhere in my house.




If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

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